Two years ago, many people felt, with some justification, that the Whitfield County and Murray County school boards weren’t being open with the public and weren’t listening to the concerns of parents.
That year, three new school board members were elected in Whitfield County and three new members were elected in Murray County. A story by Rachel Brown in today’s edition shows both school systems have made great strides in being more open and responsive to the public.
In Whitfield County, for instance, school board members began holding community meetings in which at least one board member and one central office member met with small groups of people to answer questions.
And in Murray County, board members have addressed complaints that people literally couldn’t hear them during meetings by adding a new sound system with microphones for board members and the superintendent and multiple projector screens for audience members to see any visual presentations. The school system also posts video of its board meetings at www.murray.k12.ga.us.
But they need to do more.
In Murray County, for instance, the video of board meetings sometimes isn’t posted until weeks after the meetings take place and audience members are still required to sign up to speak five days before the meeting, discouraging people from asking any spontaneous questions.
Still, the school boards seem to be taking this issue seriously. But they can offer the public all the information possible, and it won’t make a difference if the public isn’t interested.
If you don’t go to the meetings, or at least watch them on video, you still won’t know what happens. If you don’t bother to ask questions from board members you’ll never know what their answers are.
And if you don’t demand that they make more efforts to be open, they won’t.
Editorials
February 5, 2012
Greater openness by school boards is good news
- Editorials
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Voters should be wary of state’s promises
For a couple of years, some Whitfield County residents kept asking when they would see results from the Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax (SPLOST) voters approved in 2007.
Continued ... - Don’t let elections end this week
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